Back in December of last year, Behaviour Interactive announced that they were collaborating with Supermassive Games on a new project titled “The Casting of Frank Stone,” which was a narrative-driven horror game set in the Dead by Daylight universe. At the time of its announcement, some might have shrugged this off as a lazy game built to lure in the Dead by Daylight playerbase to pry open their wallets for an easy sale. If you’re one of those who thought of that, we’re glad to say that’s not the case — not by a long shot.
Who Is Frank Stone?
Ever since Behaviour Interactive announced that they would be collaborating with Supermassive Games, the highly acclaimed studio behind Until Dawn and the Dark Pictures Anthology, to develop an original Dead by Daylight single-player experience, many questions have arisen, with one being the most common: Who in the world is Frank Stone?
It’s not a question I’ll answer, not because I don’t know it, but because answering it would unravel much of the mystery around the story that Behaviour Interactive and Supermassive Games have built and tried to keep a tight lid on. And what a tight lid they’ve kept on it because, quite honestly, this may just be one of the best pieces of content from the Dead by Daylight universe ever to come out and possibly the best horror game that Supermassive Games has told thus far.
A bold statement considering how highly many think of Until Dawn, but with the minds behind Dead by Daylight also assisting the project, it becomes evidently clear from just the opening hours that this was the studio mashup we didn’t know we needed.
The story of The Casting of Frank Stone starts on a simple premise. The year is 1963. You play as rookie cop Sam Green, who is currently investigating the case of a missing boy that eventually leads him to a steel mill on the far outskirts of town. It’s creepy, dark, and lonely, the perfect place for unlawful and sinister things to happen without anyone watching. It’s a gut instinct that Sam believes to be the right one, though one that may cost him his own.
Fast forward a few decades later, the year is 1980. Despite the steel mill having shut down decades ago, the violent events that unfolded there still loom deeply over Cedar Hills. It’s a story that many wish to forget, but it’s also a story some want to be told. Here, we’re introduced to our rebellious band of teenage protagonists who seek out fame in wanting to create a slasher flick based on their town and the rumors that have come out about the mill ever since it shut down.
Despite being warned about the mill, the group sneaks off into the night to shoot the final scene of their film. Little did they know that would be the night they would come into contact with a being of unfathomable power.
While the other two stories unfold, a third story, set in 2024, also occurs at a mysterious mansion hidden deep in a forest. Three strangers who have all come into possession of a piece of film from a hit slasher horror movie, “Murder Miller,” are invited to the mansion to meet up with a potential buyer of the film pieces. But the mansion isn’t quite as lively as the group hoped, as an eerie feeling of being watched looms around the group as something unknown and sinister walks the premises.
Three stories, all seemingly taking place at different points in time, with very different tales to tell. While that typically would end up creating a rather muddy narrative, what and how both Behaviour Interactive and Supermassive Games manage to not only tell each story but how they eventually converge to not only fit nicely but tell a far larger story is nothing short of impressive.
I rarely find myself playing or watching a horror movie without something being super obvious about the plot’s direction, with me going, “called it,” well before something even happens. With The Casting of Frank Stone, Behaviour Interactive and Supermassive Games have managed to keep the story interesting by crafting a mystery that not only shocks but also builds upon the established universe in such a brilliant and unexpected way.
I felt invested from the moment the story started to the end. It’s not just the twists and turns, either, as the characters are superbly well-written. Supermassive has a knack for creating the most ’80s characters from a slasher film. Some may love that, but personally, I have always felt, outside of Until Dawn, that they’ve gone too over-the-top with them, giving us some of the most cringe performances that are trying too hard. Or in some cases, phoned in and purposely bad, much like Justice Smith’s performance in The Quarry.
The chemistry between all the characters is done spectacularly, even to those who are complete strangers to one another; it feels like each performance is meant to elevate the other, making you love or hate a character for certain actions in such a natural way that it doesn’t feel forced. It’s good pacing that spends adequate time on character development without overstaying and losing focus of the main plot.
That ultimately carries heavy weight into each choice you make, with uncertainty and fear looming over every decision. It’s a dreadful feeling to know that you hold the fate of a character in your hand, especially one that you’ve grown to care so much for. You’re going to make a mistake; I know I did plenty of times, and it’s also here where I really saw just how far the studios can push it in terms of gore.
The Casting of Frank Stone has some of the most goriest, gut-wrenching, spine-twisting deaths I’ve ever seen from a video game. Fatalities from Mortal Kombat games are the first thing to come to mind when thinking just how gory they can get. I’m not one to shy away from it, and my first instinct was that the studio would cut away from the most gruesome deaths, but they don’t, and I ended up squirming a bit and shouting “holy fuck,” with my jaw dropped; it’s all on full display. Its horrifically gross in the most satisfying of ways. Horror and slasher fans will be in for quite the gory ride.
Visuals aren’t just a shock value in this game either, as the studio uses them in a very creative way to help convey the story. Some really stunning sceneries would feel like something out of, say, Alan Wake 2. Perhaps they used the game as inspiration, but either way, the use of lighting, coloring, perspective, and composition is so wonderfully and artistically done that they can convey a range of emotions without clutter. It’s an understanding of having all the right pieces and showing that sometimes less is more.
Stick to the Shadows and Cover Your Tracks
I was a bit skeptical about seeing asymmetrical multiplayer like Dead by Daylight getting the single-player treatment, especially one in the realms of an interactive quick-time event, but honestly, it works very well. Now, don’t get me wrong, in terms of gameplay, The Casting of Frank Stone is pretty “basic” and in line with other interactive games. You can probably best describe it as being more of a movie than a game, but there’s a market for this genre, one that I immensely enjoy myself.
Dead by Daylight is a game that can be fun for all players of all skill types, probably because the premise isn’t anything crazy and easy to get into with friends. Something about being hunted down against some menacing force while roleplaying as a survivor, or the other way as a killer, is just, well, fun, as much as it is terrifying.
The Casting of Frank Stone emulates that same idea, but more in your cinematic story way. There’s a monster that’s trying to hunt you down, and you’re trying to be as careful and quiet as possible, navigating the environment and ensuring you hit the right button presses. If you hit the wrong button, make the wrong choice, or go down the wrong path, it could mean sudden death, and without other real companions to help you, things are even more tense.
The game captures the vibe of playing a Dead by Daylight game, with many mechanics, such as generators, even making their way into it.
There are other neat gameplay mechanics that do appear in the story that gets added to the “cat and mouse” hunt of it, but even so, overall, I do expect this to be mostly around QTE gameplay of having to press or mash buttons. There are difficulty levels that make the QTE timers shorter and add additional presses, so if you want something a little more challenging, there is that.
Couch co-op also exists, which means you pass the controller when prompted to someone local. However, I think one of the better features is the Twitch integration. Obviously, seeing I reviewed this before release, I wasn’t able to try it, but the idea of letting the game play itself with there being a voting system that allows viewers to vote on every decision is pretty cool. It brings interaction to viewers in a fun and unique way, with you even having some veto power to overrule their decision. That’ll make for some hilarious outcomes I cannot wait to see.
Though the campaign only took me about six hours to beat, the game has a ton of replay value. In my first run, I tried to keep everyone alive but failed, and using the cutting room board feature, I was able to go back and fix that death. I did decide to go back through the game again, and while the main ending will always occur just in slightly different variations, the story itself did change drastically enough with the absence of some characters and other choices. It didn’t entirely feel like the game was on a set track, and no matter what you did, it would always do this. I mean, it still is, but again, depending on your choices and who lives and dies, the way those situations are presented does get altered in some big significance so much so that you’ll see new story elements based on those choices.
There are also a bunch of collectibles that are more of nods to Dead by Daylight, and megafans will probably immediately spot the connection. I wouldn’t call myself one of those megafans, with many of the references going over my head, but those collectibles still had a cool factor for someone newer to the series to have fun with.
There Won’t Be Nothing to Fear Soon. Till Then, Fear Me
As much as it seems weird that a studio would release a single-player game based on their multiplayer IP, The Casting of Frank Stone makes that premise work. Will it draw player interest enough that they’ll want to play Dead by Daylight after playing this? Probably not, but taken on its own, The Casting of Frank Stone is a solid horror game, and could very well be Supermassive’s finest work to date.
Score: 9/10
Pros:
- A well-written story that fits nicely into the Dead by Daylight universe.
- “’80s” characters” that aren’t insanely over the top and cheesy for the sake of being so. There’s a charm to each of them that feels natural, one that made me actually care for them in the end, rather than treat them like fodders.
- The gore is satisfying and horrific.
- Though it can look rough at times, the visuals are generally good. They are more so highlighted though by their usage of enhancing the story.
Cons:
- QTE can be pretty basic.
- The Cutting Board feature doesn’t allow us to select our paths directly from the board. If we want to change something to see how it affects a later portion of the game, we have to replay everything all over. You can’t just replay a specific part and select that part as the new path while keeping the rest the same.
The Casting of Frank Stone review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
